Great post!
Of course these traitors will be treated and defended as heroes by the MSM, the rats in Congress and other high profile rats.
A perfidious trio, worthy representatives of the contemporary democratic party.
Dems are a waste of skin.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1992105/posts
US: Saddam paid for lawmakers’ Iraq trip
news.yahoo.com ^
Posted on 03/26/2008 3:07:47 PM PDT by bad company
WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors say Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion.
An indictment in Detroit accuses Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for three members of Congress to travel to Iraq in October 2002 at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Prosecutors say Iraqi intelligence officials paid for the trip through an intermediary.
In exchange, Al-Hanooti allegedly received 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The lawmakers are not mentioned but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. There was no indication the three lawmakers knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1992105/posts
JIM MCDERMOTT
In October 2002, Congressman Jim McDermott -- along with Representatives David Bonior and Mike Thompson -- took a trip to Iraq that had great propaganda value for Saddam Hussein’s regime. During the trip, the trio publicly expressed doubt about the Bush administration's claims that Saddam’s regime had manufactured and stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Now federal prosecutors charge that the lawmakers’ trip was secretly financed, through an intermediary named Muthanna Al-Hanooti, by Saddam’s intelligence agency. According to the indictment, Al-Hanooti, a member of a Michigan nonprofit organization named Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations (FAAIR), arranged the trip at the behest of Saddam’s regime. In exchange for his efforts, Al-Hanooti was allegedly rewarded with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Responding to the foregoing revelations, McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said, “Obviously we didn't know it at the time. The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That's the only reason we went.”
Jim McDermott is a Democratic Member of Congress who represents the Seventh District of Washington State, located in the heart of Seattle.
McDermott was born in 1936 in Chicago, earned a B.S. degree from conservative Wheaton College (the same Alma Mater as Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert) in 1958 and an M.D. degree from the University of Illinois in 1963. After serving in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps from 1968 to 1970, he took a job at the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle.
Drawn to politics, McDermott ran for a seat in the lower house of the state legislature in 1970 and won, moving up to the state Senate four years later. In 1980 he ran for Governor, ousting moderate Democratic incumbent Dixy Lee Ray in the primary but losing in November to a Republican in that year’s Ronald Reagan landslide. McDermott retired from the state legislature in 1987, served briefly as a medical officer with the U.S. Foreign Service in tropical Africa, but returned to Washington State in 1988 to run for an open Seventh District seat in Congress. He won the Democratic primary with a 38 percent plurality and the general election by 76 percent.
McDermott quickly became, and remains, one of the farthest left members of Congress. He belongs to the radical Progressive Caucus, and has been rated 95 percent liberal in his voting by the progressive Americans for Democratic Action (ADA).
The only certified psychiatrist in Congress, McDermott advocates Canadian-style socialized medicine.
In 1996, while sitting as ranking minority member of the House Ethics Committee then hearing charges against Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, McDermott received an illegally-recorded cell phone conversation among Republican congressional leaders. McDermott himself then apparently violated the law by giving access to this stolen conversation to the New York Times, which quoted excerpts in a story days later. McDermott agreed to apologize to the House for his behavior, but not to admit wrongdoing.
McDermott voted against the use of force in Iraq and against allowing oil drilling on 20 acres of the 1.2 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
In September 2002 he traveled to Baghdad along with fellow Progressive Caucus member Rep. David Bonior (D.-Michigan) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D.-California). These lawmakers embraced Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein and created propaganda in his behalf. Interviewed upon his return by George Stephanopoulos on ABC, McDermott declared, as U.S. News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone noted, that President George W. Bush was “trying to provoke a war.”
McDermott told the startled Stephanopoulos that he found Saddam Hussein more credible than the President of the United States. “I think you have to take the Iraqis on their value -- at their face value,” said McDermott, but “I think the president would mislead the American people.”
At the time, it was believed that the $5,510 travel expenses of McDermott’s trip to Baghdad were paid by the nonprofit organization Life for Relief and Development. This organization shipped food and medicine to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. One of its financial supporters was Detroit-area Iraqi-American businessman Shakir al-Khafaji, who according to an April 2004 investigation published by the Seattle Times received “lucrative vouchers for Iraqi oil from Saddam’s government.”
In addition to his $5,000 luxury junket to Baghdad, McDermott also received a $5,000 check from al-Khafaji that got deposited in the Congressman’s legal fund set up to pay for lawyers in the case involving McDermott’s involvement in the aforementioned cell phone case. McDermott returned this $5,000 -- but not the travel money -- in April 2004. He told the Seattle Times that he was unaware of the close links between his benefactor al-Khafaji and Saddam Hussein.
But this link between Saddam, al-Khafaji and the money McDermott pocketed should have been easy to see. “Since 1992,” reported Stephen Hayes in a May 2003 issue of The Weekly Standard, “al-Khafaji has served as president of the regime-backed Expatriate Conferences…. The government provided subsidized travel for Iraqis living outside the country.” The conferences were used to create leverage, pro-Saddam lobbying and a kind of political Fifth Column via Iraqis living in the U.S. and other nations.
“No one has accused McDermott of being a mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein simply for financial reasons,” wrote Hayes. “…McDermott has been saying stupid things for years with no evidence anyone has paid him to do so.”
Congressman McDermott was one of 14 leftwing Democrats in 2002 who refused to support a resolution condemning the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional and had to be prohibited in public schools and other government forums because it contained the words “under God.”
In 2003 McDermott was one of only 11 Members of Congress who voted against a non-binding resolution “expressing the support and appreciation of the nation for the President and the members of the armed forces who are participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
McDermott’s biggest source of campaign funds by a wide margin is organized labor, and one of his largest donors has been the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (which in 2006 was renamed the American Association for Justice). Other large McDermott donors are the pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough, the Seattle area-based Microsoft Corporation and Costco, and the American Psychiatric Association (whose members have an interest in the government subsidizing mental health care).
Truly Saddam’s angels.
Mike Thompson’s home newspaper has a front page article on this.
http://www.naparegister.com/articles/2008/03/27/news/local/doc47eb248b00b7f287404342.txt
Did Saddam pay for Thompson’s 2002 Iraq trip?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.
Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, Jim McDermott of Washington state and David Bonior of Michigan. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
Thompson released a statement Wednesday saying the trip was approved by the State Department.
“Obviously, had there been any question at all regarding the sponsor of the trip or the funding, I would not have participated,” he said.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Thompson said prosecutors have not suggested improper conduct by the members of Congress. The charity was investigated two years ago and was cleared to continue its work.
“The charity that paid for the trip, they didn’t do anything wrong,” said Thompson. “It was somebody involved with them that is alleged to have taken money inappropriately.”
As for his trip, Thompson said this week’s action do nothing to change what he witnessed.
“The people I saw in Baghdad, the people I talked to and the input I got from them certainly were not influenced by this charity or the donors to this charity,” he said.
“Obviously, we didn’t know it at the time,” McDermott spokesman Michael DeCesare said Wednesday. “The trip was to see the plight of the Iraqi children. That’s the only reason we went.”
Both McDermott and Thompson are popular among liberal voters in their reliably Democratic districts for their anti-war views. Bonior is no longer in Congress.
During the trip, the lawmakers expressed skepticism about the Bush administration’s claims that Saddam was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Though such weapons ultimately were never found, the lawmakers drew criticism for their trip at the time.
Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles, then the second-ranking Senate Republican, said the Democrats “sound somewhat like spokespersons for the Iraqi government.”
Seattle-area conservatives dubbed McDermott “Baghdad Jim” for the Iraq trip.
Al-Hanooti was arrested Tuesday night while returning to the U.S. from the Middle East, where he was looking for a job, his attorney, James Thomas, said. Al-Hanooti pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, illegally purchasing Iraqi oil and lying to authorities. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
Between 1999 and 2006, he worked on and off as a public relations coordinator for Life for Relief and Development, a charity formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq. FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force agents raided the charity’s headquarters in 2006 but charged nobody and allowed the agency to continue operating.
McDermott identified that charity as the group financing the Iraq trip. In House disclosure forms, he put the cost at $5,510. Thompson also understood the charity to be financing the trip, spokeswoman Anne Warden said.
Prosecutors said Al-Hanooti was responsible for monitoring Congress for the Iraqi Intelligence Service. From 1999 to 2002, he allegedly provided Saddam’s government with a list of U.S. lawmakers he believed favored lifting economic sanctions against Iraq.
Thomas said Al-Hanooti would “vigorously defend” himself against the charges but he could not discuss the specifics of the case since he had seen none of the evidence.
Register staff contributed to this report.
Thanks for posting!!!
“...we don’t mind being used.”
Because... the enemy oy my enemy ( the US Constitution and individual liberty) is my friend.
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